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Helen Devine 

 

 

July 8 - August 2 2008

The New Theatre present 

The Tailor and Ansty

By Eric Cross and adapted by Pj O'Connor

A true story about two people; the tailor, Timothy Buckley and his wife Ansty who lived in a small cottage in West Cork Ireland. The couple were immortalised in Eric Cross's "The Tailor and Ansty". When it was first published in 1943 it caused outrage and was banned by the censorship board, with three priests making the tailor burn the book in his own fireplace.

Now a powerful, touching and hilarious play, we are taken on a journey through bygone Ireland. Originally dramatised for the stage by P.J. O'Connor in 1967 the great Eamon Kelly and Brid Lynch played the title roles at the Abbey theatre Dublin and now, thirty years on the New Theatre Dublin present the play's exciting UK premier starring Ronan Wilmot (RSC & Royal Court) and Nuala Hayes (Abbey Dublin & Lyric Belfast) as the eponymous couple. Enjoy the stories of the tailor at his fireside and relive of innocence, fun and tragedy.

 

Old Red Lion, London, 8 July - 2 August 2008

MusicOHM.com

How times have changed. When Eric Cross’ original book, The Tailor and Ansty, was published in 1942, it was banned on the grounds of indecency. Telling of how the real life tailor, Timothy Buckley, and his wife, Ansty, told stories nightly to all who gathered by their fireside, the booked faced censorship because the stories were deemed offensive and immoral. Today we are as likely to praise them for their naïve charm – and P. J. Connor’s stage adaptation for very much the same reason.

Connor’s play retains the tailor’s storytelling at its heart, but moves the time period forward to the character’s old age. No longer is his kitchen packed with guests, and so we as external viewers must suffice as his audience. In this respect, the tailor, in continuing to narrate his stories, has taken to talking to himself in the absence of company. He maintains his spirit and an interest in what is around him, which makes us laugh, but similarly we are saddened at watching a frail old man in the twilight of his years. The tailor ceases to be a mere storyteller, but a flesh and blood human being with all the vulnerability that goes with that.

The tailor’s philosophy is that learning comes not from books, but from one’s own observations of everything around him. He proclaims that no-one who cares to see what’s in front of him could ever be bored, and that even the richest man can still only sleep in one bed at a time. It’s a wonderfully fresh perspective to encounter in the modern world, and his stories about marriages, wakes and cows illustrate that he practises what he preaches. For example, his story of how a heron who found that the eel it ate immediately slipped out its rear end until it swallowed it pressed up against a wall, reveals amazing observational skills. It made me feel sorry for an age when any such story was immediately dismissed as ‘filth’, for surely the people missed out on so much.

Ronan Wilmot’s performance as the tailor could hardly be faulted. He narrated his stories and conversed with his wife so naturally that his lines fused effortlessly with his actions, such as putting the kettle on the fire or lighting his pipe. Nuala Hayes as Ansty was equally strong, her gestures enabling us to appreciate how this couple knew each others’ faults inside out, but ultimately loved each other very much. Within the kitchen of their cottage in West Cork, where the entire drama took place, some of the most moving moments occurred during the silences between them.

In The Tailor and Ansty we receive a wonderful insight into two anarchical characters who live by their own rules, ignoring time (they wind their clock daily but then hide it), and making a crossword grid conform to the answers that they wish to give, rather than vice versa. It is a powerful piece, made all the more so by the intimacy of the Old Red Lion theatre, and two first class performances that I rather doubt I shall see bettered all year.

 

Tues 5 - Sat 30 Aug

Croft Productions Present

Money From America

By Tom O'Brien

Money from America centres round the return of Jack Carey to his Irish home farm from America.  Having subsidised his brother Lardy over the years with money from America, Jack has returned to stake his rightful claim on the farm as elder brother.  However, Lardy proves less than willing to give way to change, having lived a solitary life of poitin-making with only Molly the pig farmer for company. 

When Jack’s fiancée Phyllis arrives from Dublin to set things right tempers flare and secrets are spilled. Jack is subsequently found murdered after a heavy drinking session with Lardy, and the police are determined to prove that Lardy is the culprit. It turns out to be not as simple as that, however.

Tues 2 - 20 September

Stretch Theatre Company Present

Painting by Numbers

By Simon Mawdsley

In this hilarious, but uncompromising comedy, four prison inmates await the arrival of an art teacher from the local college, but when she fails to arrive they endeavour to teach themselves how to paint. Their “journey of creation” takes them on a collision course with the prison authorities, and with each other. Doors are opened and imaginations run riot - and that’s when their problems really start.

 

Painting by Numbers

TimeOut

Monday 8 September

In his introduction to ‘Soledad Brother’, the book of prison letters by murdered Black Panther George Jackson, Jean Genet writes: ‘If we accept this idea, that the revolutionary enterprise of a man or a people originates in their poetic genius…we must reject nothing of what makes poetic exaltation possible.’

It’s unlikely that the four cons-turned-Caravaggios at the heart of Simon Mawdsley’s comedy drama would ever be charged with ‘genius’. But just how they came to their belated artistic expression, and whether life outside would’ve given them the opportunity for such positive self-validation, is one of many lines of philosophical enquiry in this sensitive and compelling play.

Their reasons for signing up to prison art classes are as varied as they are. Raspy-voiced Webby (Steve Osborne pictured with Ian Attfield) wants to use art to uncover the origins of his violent behaviour; while Mancunian wideboy (Mark Rose) Bailey’s aims aren’t quite so lofty: ‘Fuck art, I’m here for t’snatch.’ But when the female art teacher doesn’t turn up, they’re forced on a journey of discovery and conflict with the authorities and themselves.
The play is exceptionally well cast, while Mawdsley (who also directs) deftly paints a picture of life both inside and out of these four walls. What could easily have been a sanctimonious or caricatured depiction of prison life is instead an intelligent exploration of redemption, (in)justice and the power of art. In painting their mural, these men let the world know they exist. The moment the authorities force them to destroy it is as eloquent a depiction of the failings of punitive justice as any.

By Tamara Gausi

Tuesday 23rd September - Saturday October 11th

Yaller Skunk in association with secondglancetheatre present

Back of the Throat

By Yussef El Guindi

Yaller Skunk return to The Old Red Lion after their critically acclaimed box office hit, In My Name.

Winner of the Northwest Playwrights’ Competition, voted Best New Play by The Seattle Times, winner of LA Weekly’s Excellence in Playwriting award, and subsequently performed across the US, Back Of The Throat has been described as 'an anxious, twisted parable for our time' (Los Angeles Times).

'FREEDOM...IT'S NEVER AS STRAIGHTFORWARD AS YOU'D LIKE IT TO BE'

When a writer invites two government agents into his apartment to help them with their enquiries he has no reason to expect events will spiral out of control - but a series of misunderstandings highlight the ease with which individual rights can be taken away in the face of institutional paranoia; and how a life can be changed after just an hour-long interrogation.


Tuesday 14 October - Saturday 1 November

London Irish Theatre Presents

Johnjo

By Tom O'Brien

Johnjo is the poignant study of a man from the cradle to the grave. Forced to go on the run from his Irish hill-farm home at an early age, Johnjo washes up in Lincolnshire in war-time England. Working on farms and finding himself treated worse than the prisoners-of-war, he goes on the run again. And so begins a lifelong association with ‘the lump’; the underbelly of the construction industry. From building motorways and living in camps ‘you wouldn’t keep a decent dog in’, we eventually find him in London working for a ‘subby’ called Bannaher, not having been home to Ireland for more than thirty years. Disillusioned and bitter at having beenground down by the harshness of his life, he, nevertheless, retains a few sparks of defiance.

Tuesday 14 October - Saturday 1 November

Reduced Circumstances Presents

Call Me If You Feel Too Happy

By Nicola Albon & Sophie Pelham

Bipolar is a buzz word in celebrity chic but what if you're not on the A-List?
Straight from a successful run at this year's Edinburgh Fringe Festival, this is a witty and candid account of life as a pill-popping twenty-something coming to terms with a mental illness in a modern world.

“Sophie Pelham gives a beguiling solo performance in this honest, autobiographical show... which provides an optimistic account of dealing with a feared and often misunderstood condition.” (The Herald)

“Pelham delivers a persuasive performance, winning the audience over with her natural humour. The show is funny, poignant and insightful” (The Stage)

November 4 –22

Weaver Hughes Ensemble presents

Pebbles on the Beach

by Joanna Pinto

Mum and Dad. I’m a Brighton now, and I’ve got myself a flat.  I’ve got myself a job. I’ve got a girlfriend.  I’m doing all right. I won’t be back for Christmas.  I’ll write again when I’m good and ready. Leo.

Leo’s number one rule is to leave someone before they leave you.  Ever since he found out he was adopted as child he has been living by that rule.  Now, he sits on Brighton Beach trying to remember how he got there.  He has questions and wants answers but all he has are pebbles in his hand.

PEBBLES ON THE BEACH is a touching, cathartic exploration of one man’s journey of self discovery and those affected by the lifelong impact of adoption, bringing to focus that you are not defined by others but by yourself. This production transfers from the Courtyard Theatre at this years’ Edinburgh Festival Fringe with the original cast.

November 24 -29

One Way - Eutopia Presents the British Premiere of   

Best Friends Forever

Written and Directed by Ioli Andreadi                                           

Translated by Deborah Pearson 

One Way-Eutopia is kindly supported by THE J.F. COSTOPOULOS FOUNDATION and affiliated with the One Roof Theatre 

Through an awkward love triangle between two middle-aged women and a Ghost, Best Friends Forever asks the question: Is the whole world a stage? Is it possible to create our personal stories, and not rehearse the same ancestral scenes? Or we are condemned to repeat the same parts, again and again, over and over, Amen?

The play takes as an example a story of friendship, love and betrayal, and encourages us to think about modern society and politics. How can a person or a society exit from a vicious circle, from what seems as a dark tunnel with no exit? Can a person or a society escape from repeating the same old mistakes, escape from “generations of poison”-social, political and emotional poison- and create something new?

Greek writer and director Ioli Andreadi presents her fourth play, Best Friends Forever. The play explores the relationship between two women, Ilona and Carolina and a Ghost. Ilona visits Carolina at her house; the two women chat; clichés upon clichés keep arising. Then strange sounds are heard; a glass breaks; a door slams shut. They can smell a cigar yet neither of them is smoking. Carolina reveals a secret from their past which leaves Ilona in shock; in a while her dead husband Nicolas will enter the scene to reveal even more.  What will Ilona do?

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